I probably haven't followed the updates as much as many/most of you, and so I called a CM just for some quick answers that I thought I'd share in case it helps:
1) Additional dining will likely be added, but not until assessing how it's going after opening in mid July. So for now, even some quick service locations w/ easy mobile ordering like ABC, Woody's, Columbia Harbour, Casey's Corner may not be open until later. I think we may be more bummed out about Hollywood Scoops and Plaza Parlor not being open in the scorching summer.
2) CM agreed that appears no breakfast now at Be Our Guest, with lunch now being table service at something like $62/adult and $37/children. I guess we won't see the inside of BOG for a while!
3) The highly encouraged (not required) touchless pay can be achieved by using credit/debit (don't have to use your MagicBands as you might think). Reminder that there is a $100 refundable deposit for linking a credit card to MB for charging. You can still use giftcards, not directly, but you could add, say, $500 in giftcards to room, and have the MBs charge to room. Anything leftover will result in a reissued giftcard, so you no need to feel pressure to use the entire giftcard balance. I think I also saw an article stating MBs are no longer free with onsite stays? CM said that's not true, it's still only the personalized ones that are an additional charge. But I'm guessing that because the free MBs are reported to stop Jan. 2021, he hasn't heard about this yet. But if you're using an old MB, they are rated for 2 yrs (I've seen where it can be longer), and you can match up past orders on
MDE by serial numbers to tell if you are taking a relatively new one or super old one. That's sort of handy given I always order plain blue or green bands.
The interesting news about MBs being mandated for the NBA players at WDW for hotel room/park access, security checkpoints, and check in for COVID/medical testing with different color signaling medical attn required.
4) Online express check in is highly encouraged but not required. I always avoid, so that I can try to choose between avail. rooms for proximity to transportation or dining. But you could do online check in (inside 10 days before arrival recommended) and then still visit the counter if you don't like your room location. They're encouraging not to physically check out either... so they will leave you an check out receipt at your door with no need to visit the front desk unless you need to for something specific.
5) CM believes rooms could be staggered for spacing. Not sure I get this. I'm not sure what that would do for requests to link rooms. I'd think they would still let you.
6) Giftcards for skipping housekeeping is gone for now. There will be a deep clean between guests and lighter cleaning during your stay.
7) Magical Express will take you from MCO airport to hotel. But still not confirmed that they will take you back to airport. You'd think so, and CM agreed, but they left that out. No airline services at any of the onsite hotels. Not sure about printing boarding passes or if just the bag service is gone. I don't think a lot of the value resorts had a business center where you could print them yourself.
8) Transportation will likely still be 45-60min before parks open and running 90-120 min after closing. My side thought, is that you're always told 45min before park opens and certain park's buses run much earlier. But, I think it's possible that buses will be not quite as early as historically. Some of the early buses were to accommodate early dining. While there are staggered park openings, with ea. park opening 1 hr part, and less guests, there will still need to be a lot of buses to accommodate proper spacing. No more jammed buses with people standing on top of your feet.
9) We all used to plan our days with Touring Plans, or a free service, or from drew from our own experiences: avoiding MK on Sat, or avoiding EMH parks, etc. Now with the limited capacities and no EMH, a Sat is just like a Tue/Wed in terms of crowds. Every day should be more or less the same. I was thinking about this yesterday as I was trying to pick my park days. Say it's 25-30% capped capacity at the start, Disney will have no trouble hitting that #, even with the onslaught of disappointing adjustments and ensuing cancellations. And without party nights, too, and dining reservations having been wiped clean, it's pretty simple to pick your days.
10) I was initially excited when I saw that 6/28 new tickets would be avail. But they're for 2021. No word on when they will expire but most likely 12/31/21, even if you buy the latest avail tickets, something like 9/26/21. So technically they can expire 1/14/22 (for a 12/31 arrival), depending on when you start your 1st use. No word yet on if tickets/resort reservations will be avail for 2020 later this yr. but I guess a lot of will depend on how we're doing with infection levels in the next couple of months after the initial jump after lifted bans, and if Disney can expand the guest cap. Obviously.
11) I am still wanting to buy 6 day tickets for first of Sept, to replace my linked 4 day + water/NBA, and use those for next 9/2021 when water/nba is more likely open (we also lost a
MNSSHP). Still no word on water parks, we both believe that they're a no go for rest of this year. CM thinks slight chance for 1 water park, sort of like TL during the winters while BB is in refurb.
12) We were initially thinking about maybe filling those 2 empty days with the new Cirque production... you may have heard that they are not going to be open, and may not the rest of the yr. AMC announced a couple of weeks ago opening like 450 theaters late this month. I wonder if the DS AMC will be open. I was surprised that Lion King at Animal Kingdom was initially reported as opening (but not Nemo or Flights of Wonder), and then quickly axed. AK is maybe my wife's fav. park. With us having only 4 days, the Lion King news caused us to pick a 2nd MK day over AK, and EP over AK since there will maybe be a few new things for us like the new Canada show, the educational production above Living with the Land, I think the new grill at Liberty Inn. And now Affection Station is also closed at AK, reported today.
13) In the slight chance that I'll be able to buy 9/2020 tickets again, I'd want to link them to MDE, then create a new MDE account to transfer the existing 4 day tickets with assigned park reservations, both for safekeeping for 9/2021 but also to make sure that the new 6 day tickets are prioritized. Alternatively, you could have Guest Relations prioritize the 6 day ones. But why waste the time. I would be open to booking a 1 day Universal and taking an uber for the 13 miles from Pop. But I don't know if Unversal's entry is as convoluted / if we can readily use that as a backup plan to not being able to buy 6 day tickets for Sept.
As a side note: any expiration or other risk outside a fire/natural disaster for keeping unlinked APs? We haven't tried to link in a separate MDE acct to move into our main profiles later. We also have a set of 6 day tickets but they have the fun option, and don't want to waste the water park entries this yr.
14) You can't modify park day reservations like you could with FastPasses. You can only delete them. Suggestion was to have a PC/Laptop open and logged into MDE and ready to select different days, before deleting park days on your phone. HS was booked up first for the first week or 2 and EP, and then AK followed for filling out Mid/late July with onsite hotel/ticket guests. Disney confirmed that additional spots will be released on Friday when APs are eligible to book. No word yet on additional days being avail. for those booked days for ticket only guests on 6/28.
The park reservation system was sure frustrating yesterday am - getting up at 6am central to not being able to sign in and pick until like 830. But at least we have our 4 days and don't have to stare at the pink castle anymore. I saw a suggestion from Kenny the Pirate to have like several browsers open from your laptop/PC Firefox, Chrome, IE and also your phones. And to favorite the page and the reservations calendar page. Good luck with your park reservations everyone!
as if Disney IT could put a system like that together in a couple months
